The present invention relates to a method of transferring products between continuously-moving conveyors.
More specifically, the present invention relates to a method of transferring products from a first to a second conveyor by which the products are conveyed respectively at substantially constant speed along a first and second path tangent to each other, and at least the first of which is a curved path.
The present invention is particularly suitable for use on cigarette manufacturing machines, in particular, cigarette packing machines, to which the following description refers purely by way of example.
On known cigarette packing machines, said first conveyor consists of a packing wheel having a number of peripheral seats which, as the wheel is rotated about its axis, are fed through a loading station where each seal is fed with a preformed group of cigarettes, preferably foil-wrapped, and a blank which is folded partially about the group as this is inserted inside the seat. As it is fed by the packing wheel along a circular path, each blank is gradually folded about the group to form a packet, which is normally completed, by a final folding operation, as the packet is transferred from the packing wheel to said second conveyor consisting of an output conveyor substantially tangent to the packing wheel.
On known packing machines of the aforementioned type, the first and second conveyor are normally step-operated, so that the products are transferred without difficulty as the conveyors are arrested between one step and the next.